Year-End Critics' Polls 2014

ag cook "beautiful" is the best of all those tracks

This literally sounds like diarrhea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdLvp630plc

yeah taylor's made eoy lists due to individual contributors putting her on their ballots, but p4k refusing to acknowledge her existence otherwise and deign her with a review at this point looks hopelessly out of touch. wonder if they'll do an about-turn come lp6 now she's more socially acceptable amongst their readership.

p4k's lists are clearly not purely ballot-determined tho

tell me more

Jhene over Tinashe smh

I can't fucking unhear the diarrhea thing and I didn't even like "Lemonade"

lol

(also, re upthread, thanks!)

wonder if they'll do an about-turn come lp6 now she's more socially acceptable amongst their readership.

it'll be funnier if they do tbh, it'll make it evident just how much coverage/lack of is determined by positioning and taste calculus rather than quality. does anyone think taylor swift is making the best music of her career right now, or is it just harder to outright ignore her? obv p4k are not alone in this.

ban sophie seconded

people hate SOPHIE now? I haven't heard any of the recent stuff...

all I know is that Taylor's full-on embrace of pop music is making ppl of my acquaintance who have been as irritated with her as I have been go "wait, I really like this" so there may be an argument to be made that Taylor is making the most relatable music of her career right now

"does anyone think taylor swift is making the best music of her career right now"

not able or going to comment on the speculation spiral here, but fwiw I am one person who thinks this

Unofficial tally of 56 metal musicians polled by MetalSucks:

1 Mastodon, Once More ‘Round the Sun
2 Behemoth – The Satanist
2 Triptykon – Melana Chasmata
4 Cannibal Corpse – A Skeletal Domain
5 Eyehategod, S/T
6 Godflesh – Decline & Fall EP
7 Septicflesh – Titan
8 Swans – To Be Kind
9 Dead Congregation – Promulgation of the Fall
10 Black Anvil – Hail Death
11 Misery Index – The Killing Gods
11 Pallbearer – Foundations of Burden
13 YOB – Clearing the Path to Ascend
14 Midnight- No Mercy for Mayhem
15 Cynic – Kindly Bent to Free Us
16 Blut Aus Nord – Memoria Vetusta – Saturnian Poetry
17 Atriarch – An Unending Pathway
17 Trap Them – Blissfucker
19 Bölzer – Zoma
19 Job for a Cowboy – Sun Rater
21 Aborted – Necrotic Manifesto
21 At The Gates- At War with Reality
21 Lana Del Rey – Ultraviolence
24 Pink Floyd – The Endless River
24 Wovenhand – Refractory Obdurate

Correction, that's Godflesh - A World Lit Only by Fire not the EP.

Have always disliked Sophie but Hey QT is giving me full-on red mist.

i'd find it hard to see beyond "hey qt" if i was asked for the worst track of 2014

Sophie's idea of pop is tailor made for p4k, really.

Does anyone think taylor swift is making the best music of her career right now, or is it just harder to outright ignore her?

I think there's a huge degree of realizing if she hasn't gone away yet, maybe she deserves some recognition. Not that different from what happened with Justin Timberlake circa Justified.

By the way in two years S/T will be 10 years old; I'm intrigued to see the level of reconsideration it gets among critics. Even more so with Fearless, but we're 4 years away from that.

Maybe I'm misremembering through a filter of ILX love but I thought there was a gigantic critgasm over Justified at the time, driven mostly by the Neptunes/Timbaland production.

That's what I remember too!

oh I see, I misread you

(I keep forgetting 'NSync existed, which may be part of Justin's plan)

Oh this man could never forget that lightning bolt of music striking through his heart that was "No strings attached" :S

Re the discussion of Noura Mint Seymali upthread, I was confusing her with someone else. Noura Mint Seymali is awesome—it's Aziza Brahim who's putting out a boring, café-background-music version of this type of thing.

Sophie did terrible stuff recently but BIPP is still the jam.

Just listened to Hey QT. Not great but better than a lot of stuff that people pass off for 'good' on this forum. Haven't really paid much attention to PC Music but i get that theyre prob the successors of people who dug happy hardcore, chiptunes, electroclash and stuff like Tatu back in the day, except doing it with an increasingly arch veneer. Double-arch if you consider the electroclash crowd were effectively parodying 80s nu-romantic tropes.

Is it me or there is more hip-hop/rnb on this year's pitchfork list than any other?

i think so. as lol- and zing-worthy as p4k can be the top tracks lists have been relatively diverse the past few years

*can be at times

i admire the future islands singer, that letterman video is pretty great, he has passion and heart. but he needs a different band, i am sick of the same 80s peter hook/new order sound that indie has been aping for decades now

(speaking of the #1 p4k track of 2014, i wasn't clear about that)

Just discovered Jessica Pratt at the moment, really my thing. End of year lists are the best.

Only problem I have with Future Islands backing band is that they win the most bored looking band of 2014. And I have to assume it's because they think it looks cool to appear bored.

i know! it's such a contrast with their singer, their boredom is very jarring next to him

they think it looks cool to appear bored.

or just that they have little to no stage presence (especially compared to the dynamo of weirdness he is) - like a fair amount of dudes in indie bands

I don't feel like defending that band in particular, but is it a problem to look bored on stage? I just assume no musician truly is, just hyper focused or extremely nervous.

^ someone who likes boring indie music.

i find it hard to believe that these dudes who just like a year before were playing fucking warehouse shows and weeknight half full club gigs were going on the david letterman show and purposefully being "bored" or blase

is it a problem to look bored on stage?

doesn't bother me that much in bands within that wheelhouse, long as the music's good.

Not a big deal to me, just something I noticed in all the live clips I've seen at this point.

i don't think they are trying to look bored or blase. they just look bored and blase

i almost think it would too much honestly if the other guys were super animated anyway with the leader singer as he is, would be overkill imo

That was just me guessing based on the intensity of their blasé. And I'm not saying they need to be super animated, it's just I wasn't seeing them grooving AT ALL.

they could at least have the decency to groove

Their facial expressions, too.

i dunno i feel like shy ppl tend to shut down

that's probably all it is

yeah taylor's made eoy lists due to individual contributors putting her on their ballots, but p4k refusing to acknowledge her existence otherwise and deign her with a review at this point looks hopelessly out of touch. wonder if they'll do an about-turn come lp6 now she's more socially acceptable amongst their readership.

― prolego, Monday, 15 December 2014 16:30 (5 hours ago) Permalink

Agree completely. In what universe does an artist have two of the year's 100 best songs in two different years and still not have an album worthy of review? They review 1,250 albums a year.

Thing that surprised me most on the p4k list is how many of those tracks are self-released / unreleased. Just trying to find the songs in the top 25 that I'd never heard before, there were like 7 or 8 that I had to go to youtube or soundcloud to hear. That either says something about p4k's strive for curated content or the democratization of the industry as a whole; yet many of these songs are by big artists, e.g., Nicki Minaj, Drake.

is it a problem to look bored on stage?

imagine Bernard Sumner attempting what Future Islands dude did

Suspect that pitchfork not reviewing taylor is more akin to politicians wanting to avoid wedge issues than actual disdain.